the end

Though I had heard the quote before, what really brought it to light for me was hearing a woman put the lines to music, and make it her own; then teach the song to a group of us as a "paperless" song, so that it became our own as well: "In my end is my beginning, in my beginning is my end; in my end is my beginning, in my beginning is my end." Those sung words, turned around, and repeated  again and again come from T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets (Part II: East Coker) Now, they ring in my ear, sung from my heart at the many ends and beginnings of things. Things like a year, or a life. Today I will officiate a funeral for a woman I barely knew.

To sit with a family, to instantly get to know them with no hope for small talk, but to jump right into questions like: "What story do I need to hear about your mother/wife/sister?" is an impossible balancing act. Seeking the path between a church-every-week-cradle-Episcopalian sitting in the rocking chair, the couple on the couch who joined the Mormon Church, and the agnostic-no-want-for-organized-religion cousin in the easy chair, all united by the heavy veil of grief that hangs between the remembered, hope-filled stories is an impossible balancing act. Not an act as in pretending, but to take the action of opening up space for honest conversation to happen, and for Spirit to move in spite of the petty details of dogma. Those things matter less than real human connection, and finding threads of hope to hold on to (which may include dogma, or not) to lead us into life eternal. The eternal doesn't begin nor does it end. It is already and ever shall be.

So what hymns would you like to use? At your own funeral, what hymns would you like to be sung?

As we bury 2014, we know that it is as simple as flipping the calendar that 2015 will begin. At midnight whether we are awake for midnight or not. Whether we see a crystal ball drop, or simply watch the stars shine above an empty pasture. In my end is my beginning.

I have officiated at more funerals in 2014 than I expected or wanted. At the last funeral, less than a month ago for another man I had only met in passing, I used a quote from Rick Bass. The Mother in his short story sat with her family, and on a map, found the center of their property. It was right under an oak-tree up on a cliff near the Nueces River. "That's where I want to be planted." she told her family. From then on, the Father and the rest of the family was comfortable using the word "planted" as well.

In a world that appears more and more linear, I'm am thankful this New Year's Eve for the non-linear cycles of Spirit; that we do not put our full faith in a straight line between A and B, but realize that ultimately A is B, and there is a whole, invisible line of life that circles back and forth between A and B, that even the straight line is just a suggestion of the path that is actually surrounded by our coil-like spirals we follow in this life.

Between birth and death, those two miraculous transitions, or more tangibly: between the births and deaths of the ones we love most dearly, life springs up again and again. What is planted in death is a seed that leads to a new growth and a new birth. "In my beginning is my end," and "in my end is my beginning."

It seems a cruel trick to have an Easter orientation at a Funeral service, but lest we get lost in the mournful, temporary illusion of a linear existence, our tradition reaches back into our experience of Good Friday to remind us of Resurrection, where we are headed in spite of death's best efforts. Without this reminder, how else would we remember to lift up our voices at the grave to make our song "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."  

Sing Alleluias at my grave. And sing a sad song, too. Then something from Mumford and Sons, or maybe Justin Stewart can sing one of his. Sing out, and smear the boundaries uniting the meanings of ends and beginnings, then carry the fertilizer of my own planting and go out and grow. That's what I'll try to do today after we plant another saint, commending her to God.

And after we plant 2014, 2015 will grow. From the seed and the fertilizer of this year will come new life, like a proud oak standing on a cliff calling our attention upward as we sing "Alleluia! In my end is my beginning, in my beginning is my end. Alleluia!"